Boyarin and Gould are both scientists, yet neither is writing (strictly
speaking) about science or for scientists. Based both on their essays
and their ideas, write a paper in which your central project addresses
how disciplinary knowledges such as science function or should function
in the public spheres of community and politics.
Rough drafts must be 4 pages. Final drafts must be 5-6 pages. See class
homepage for more help with this assignment.
Some Help
This is actually a very important assignment. Soon, each of you will be
immersed in a discipline by choosing a major: economics, biology, history,
chemistry, political science, and so on. So the first thing this assignment
is asking you to do is to consider how any specific field of knowledge
should relate to the world at large. But there's more. Once you emerge
from Rutgers with a degree in whatever discipline you choose and once
you have a job in your career, you're going to have to use what you've
learned while relating to people from perhaps very different disciplines.
In that sense, this assignment is also asking you to start thinking about
how or why you might apply what you learn in larger communities, from
the workplace through the political arena.
To Get Started
Here are a number of questions meant to point you in the direction of
potential projects. You should NOT answer attempt to answer all these
questions in your paper. You should NOT even try to "answer"
one of them. Instead, these questions should help you start thinking about
the issues of the assignment and the essays in ways that will let you
formulate a project of your own:
- Boyarin says that anthropology is a tool for mediating between the
inidividual and the community. Does Gould's essay provide any similar
tools through evolution? How do these tools function? That is, how is
it possible for scientific concepts to work in areas outside of science?
- What kind of political capital does science have, judging from these
essays? Do the politicians in Gould's essay base public policy on science
or on something else? And should they do either? How do people react
when they find out Boyarin is a scientist?
- What enables these authors to write outside their respective
fields? That is, how do they create an argument that makes
sense to someone who's not in their discipline?
- Should science and scientists have any particular authority in political
and community matters and debates? If so, why? What is it about science,
as demonstrated by the ideas of the essays, that would give it that
authority?
- Boyarin also talks a lot about marginality. Does that have anything
to do with his or Gould's ability to speak to other audiences?
- In terms of community, are Boyarin and Gould individuals first or
scientists?
- Gould's essay is also largely about language. How does language (Yiddish,
"evolution") influence the role science can play in public
policy and community?
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